Watch TV Ident Research

Watch is an entertainment TV channel broadcasting in the UK and Ireland, and is part of the UKTV Channel, same as the Alibi TV channel. It features many different genres of shows and puts out shows from the UK and also internationally. The reason I chose to research this was because I have watched this channel for a long time and I have watched this channel more than other leading channels, simply because of their featured shows. I also thought it would be a good idea to research a TV channel that I actually watch.

This ident is from 2008 and was part of an “Alien Invasion Week” where they featured science fiction shows and made this a theme for the week, which helped promote their channel. This ident is very family friendly and is very simple to understand. I like how they give their logo, nicknamed ‘Blinky’ a personality and give it human emotions, like fear into this ident. The ident begins with the ground shaking and rumbling and Blinky is, well, blinking around and gives you the impression that it is in fear of what’s to come. It’s also hiding behind the words ‘Watch’ to push the message further to the viewers. In the beginning Blinky quivers only a small amount, and then it slides behind the ‘a’ in ‘watch’ and this has some meaning and was not some quick decision by the editor and creator of the ident. First of all, it is hiding behind the ‘a’ to still be visible to the viewers and is not covered by lines so you can still see the inside of the eye and not be distracted by anything else. It is a modern font and is very rounded so this effect fits in nicely with the rest of the text. Something else I noticed was that Blinky, the logo, looks like it is looking through a peephole in the door, which is what someone would do if they don’t know who is knocking at the door. Similarly, the same thing is happening and the logo does not know who or what is coming, hence the peephole. Blinky then realises that the sound and everything is happening is from above and looking through a peephole is useless. The logo then jumps out of the way and instantly the screen turns very dark and is only illuminated by the green beam coming from above, which is a high indication the is an ‘alien spaceship’ and this effect has come from many movies in the past to give viewers this feeling that an abduction is taking place. As a result of so many movies using this effect it became very cliché and is the main reason why it is very noticed today. As the green beam comes down, the logo jumps around and is trying to avoid the ‘abduction beam’ at all costs. This adds to the viewer feeling that the logo has a personality, as it has very fluid movement and is showing a very human emotion, fear. As it is trying to escape it comes towards the camera, towards the viewer, and instantly gets sucked backwards to the green beam, and you can see this with the use of shadows. It looks down from left to right and is clearly trying to escape but to no avail, and gets sucked up off the screen. As soon as it gets sucked up the rest of the screen clears up and returns to white as it was before.

This ident was from 2010 and is a newer, more aesthetically pleasing ident, and is very fluid and works well. This was not part of a theme and was purely made as a standard ident. I really like this one due to the real life elements and the fact that everything looks so professional and timed perfectly. The ident begins with what seems to be a random pink cloth-like material flying in the air. The music instantly begins and eases in very well. You can instantly see the effect that is taking place and you see what is going on, yet it has been created very well. It is a reverse effect, and what has happened is that the table cloths and the cutlery and basically everything in this video has been thrown into the air, then reversed to make it look like everything is coming together really smoothly and immediately. It is quite strange to look at, as everything looks so fluid that it becomes more fluid than normal human life, which makes you doubt what is going on and makes you wonder if it is special effects or some camera trickery, when in reality all the effect is and what makes this ident so good is a simple video reverse. This is a very interesting idea for an ident as it is nice, quick and very simple. There are plates and other pieces of cutlery flying back into position, which gives an impression as if they are magnetic and it makes the whole scene orchestrated. If you look closely, you can see people in dark suits, throwing and holding objects while they are in motion, which is something I did not notice the first few times I watched this. If you play the video backwards, you can see how the actual scene played out in reality, and how the people in black suits were grabbing things at a specific time and throwing them, and when played in reverse would look like they are putting them down instead of throwing them up. It looks like the women jump up in chairs and both come into the table at the same time, but in reality they are being pulled back at the same time. This is a very strange look in a video and works really well when trying to make a video look unnatural or strange. This is also a family friendly ident and the music is also child-like, making it more approachable and less formal. I especially like when the broken plate flies back into position and becomes un-broken, which makes the reverse effect really come in on its own. This is my favourite ident out of the three, not because it is real life footage but because of the excellent use and idea of the reverse effect.

This is a Watch ident from 2012 and is closer to the current ones they use, as it is the same logo and style as today’s idents. This logo and design is really nice and in my opinion the best the logo has ever been. I like how they developed through the years to transform their logo from an eyeball to a very recognisable motion design. I think this ident was used at the very beginning of the day, right when the channel starts up in the morning. I like their colour scheme here, as the background is a very light blue and looks a lot like the sky. From the top right corner you can see ink being splashed underwater come through and there is also an audio aid to help make this look really professional. The music slows down at the same time as the ink, which is also very professional and is very suitable for this. The ink is made up of different colours, which makes the ident very vibrant and makes it more memorable. It also cuts to many shots of the ink which includes a close up, which looks very abstract and surreal, and leaves the viewer in awe. My favourite shot is at 10 seconds in, when you get a very quick but close view of the ink, which really shows the liquid and the bubble inside it, which is a good effect for a quick clip. At 15 seconds into the ident, the footage continues at real-time instead of slow motion, which is what it was doing the entire ident before this. A voice introduces the channel, which leads me to believe that this ident was used very early in the morning, when the channel begins showing content. The ident cuts to the Watch logo, which is a semi-circle with their channel name over the front. The word Watch comes in from the left and sweeps into full view to the right. While this is happening, the ink is behind the logo and looks like it is coming out of the semi-circle, which is in unison to how the name sweeps out. As soon as the name ‘Watch’ has completely finished its animation, the ink footage goes into slow motion and remains like this until the end of the ident. It also uses the same audio aid, which is a nice touch and informs the viewer of the slow motion, which again, leaves the viewer in awe of the effect. I like the simplicity of this ident and how they combine real footage and motion design into one sleek video.

Over the span of 4+ years, this channels design has really come together. The logo has developed greatly, and the idents that follow are very suitable for their appropriate theme. Over the years however, the overall atmosphere has been very positive and bright, and is good for watching with family. The target audience of these idents are for anyone, as the first one is humourous, the second is interesting and the third ident is exciting. They are always making bright and vivid idents, which make it easier to define what kind of mood they are portraying, which is upbeat and cheerful. It isn’t child-like, but can be found funny by children, especially the first one, which is good for a channel that features all kinds of entertainment. The use of colour in the first one is not as varied as some of the others, as it is simply a white background and the green beam from the top of the video. This adds to the simplicity of the ident, and doesn’t cram up the main subject of the ident. The second one is of a high contrast and uses black as the background so that colours like white, pink and blue will stand out more than they would without the black. The third one is completely filled with colour and uses really bright colours against the bright blue, such as pink, yellow and purple. These are contrasting and complimentary colours to make the most out of colour and make the ident really stand out to the viewer. The movement in all these idents are very fluid and aren’t too slow or boring, which is perfect for a channel like this. The first ident uses very subtle movement to add depth and a personality to the logo, which was executed perfectly. The second one uses movement very well, as the movement is the main focus in this ident. The camera moves back very slowly while everything in the foreground is happening, and you don’t really notice how slow the camera is going until you focus on it. Near the end of the ident it turns in an effortless way to the screen. The actual objects are moving so fast due to the reverse effect, which usually looks very well if done well, which, in this case, was done quite well. Everything is flying about and it really makes you focus on the cenre of the composition, which is the table and the two women sitting on either side of it. It does this in one take, which can make you wonder how many takes it must have taken them to get this perfected. The third ident uses many different cuts and shots to really make the effect of the ink in water pop and stand out to the viewer. The first 15 seconds is close up camera shots of the ink, and in each shot the ink fills the screen. This makes the logo stand out much more, as it is small and in the centre of the image, whereas the ink shots were large and all over the place. Typography is not used so much in these idents, as it is more about the objects rather than the type. The idents also have real life footage in them, which catches the attention of the viewer faster than typography. These idents don’t really say so much about the channel, and more about catching the viewers attention. This is because the channel has so much variation in their featuring shows. The audio in all of the idents is perfect the way it is, as in the first ident the sound is very subtle and can’t really be heard over the voice-over. The second ident’s audio is just music, and does not have a voiceover mainly because a commenting voice over this video would just not work and would ruin the atmosphere of the video. The third ident uses both background audio and a voiceover, and both work well with each other.